Osborne makes his mark with personal attack on Brown

The shadow chancellor, George Osborne, yesterday launched a direct, personal and ambitious attack on Gordon Brown, denouncing him as "a chancellor who is holding Britain back".

In a sign of the Conservative party's new-found confidence that Mr Brown is in trouble, Mr Osborne let neither his inexperience nor the announcement of a new Tory leader tomorrow restrain him.

He set out three charges against Mr Brown that are likely to become a hallmark of Conservative campaigning from now until the next election.

The first is to challenge the chancellor on the state of the economy and public finances. The Conservatives have tried this before and failed, not least in 1998 when Francis Maude accused the government of "a recession made in Downing Street" only to see the economy grow. But this time the data is much more on the opposition's side, as loud jeers in the chamber showed when Mr Brown admitted that "the toughest and most challenging year" meant that growth would be only 1.75%.

"His golden rule is now tarnished and discredited, productivity growth has slumped, business investment has collapsed and Britain has some of the weakest economic growth in the developed world," Mr Osborne told MPs.

The second weapon in the shadow chancellor's armoury is to blame all this on the chancellor's decision-making, accusing him of "single-handedly destroying the public finances". He is attempting to paint the chancellor as a devious and inept meddler, who through stealth taxes and complex tax credits has made things worse, not better.

Third, Mr Osborne launched a direct attack on the chancellor's personality, claiming that he was both little short of a liar and "a roadblock to reform". This phrase lies at the heart of the Conservative strategy. It exploits the Treasury's negative response to last week's Turner report on pensions - briefing that it would it lead to 4p rise in income tax if implemented - and builds on Mr Osborne's claim at the weekend that he found it impossible to have any kind of personal relationship with his opposite number.

Yesterday Tory sources said things had been no better between Mr Brown and Mr Osborne's predecessor, Oliver Letwin.

Linked to this is the chancellor's complex relationship with Tony Blair. "The prime minister will remember telling his party conference that each time he had tried to reform the public services, he wish he'd gone further," Mr Osborne said. "Well, who stopped him? Who frustrated him? The chancellor of the exchequer."

Accusing him of issuing data little better than "tractor production figures from the old Soviet Union", Mr Osborne said Mr Brown's ambition had got the better of him. "This is the tragic story of a chancellor who has been forced to wait so long to go to No 10 that his reputation in charge of No 11 is crumbling," he said.

"The country needs a chancellor who is interested in reforming Britain for the future, not in defending his failed policies of the past. But this chancellor is the roadblock to reform. A chancellor from the last century who has run out of ideas. A chancellor who is holding Britain back."

The confrontational performance bore no trace of the Conservatives' promised consensual approach to politics under David Cameron. Nor did it show much sign of Mr Osborne's attempt to prove that the Conservatives have an alternative approach to economic management.

That was more visible in the shadow chancellor's speech to the Social Market Foundation in September, when he said: "We have tended to produce tax cuts like white rabbits out of the magician's hat just weeks before polling day so that they look like election gimmicks."

This kind of talk can offer hostages to fortune, as Mr Osborne found out yesterday when the chancellor quoted from one of the shadow chancellor's recent articles praising Labour's economic abilities.

But Tories will take comfort from the fact that Mr Brown, who has already seen off six shadow chancellors, found the latest and youngest worth attacking.